


Three Dog Night

by Mishafied



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: But not the fluffy romantic hypothermia, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, M/M, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-05 00:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1087367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mishafied/pseuds/Mishafied
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A three dog night; when it's so cold that you would need three dogs with you to stay warm. Sometimes, even one dog is wishful thinking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Dog Night

**Author's Note:**

> Written on a whim. Loads of hurt/comfort. <3 Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I am not an EMT, a nurse, or anything of the sort. All information about treatment and procedure is taken from meticulous internet research, but may still not be entirely accurate. If I messed something up, I apologize; I did my best to stay entirely within the realm of realistic.

Today’s director was superhuman.

 

That had to be the reason for this. Any other director would have called off the shoot when the wind chill dropped below zero. Or when it passed two hours after they were all supposed to head home. As it was, all the nonessential crew had already fled, and Misha was curled up in a poofy winter coat with a fluffy hood over his signature trench coat, watching as Jensen and Jared did that take ‘just one more time’.

 

They’d done the take ‘just one more time’ fourteen times now. Misha counted. He was cold, he was hungry, and everyone else was too.

 

Everyone except this guest director, who was either an alien or had eskimo ancestry. Misha was leaning toward alien, at this point.

 

He couldn’t even tweet his complaints. When he was doing his own scene, his cell phone had gotten knocked out of the pocket of his trench coat when one of their ‘demon’ stunt men had to grab him and swing him around suddenly. Turns out that smartphones didn’t like being soaked in a heavy, wet pile of snow.

 

His poor phone just made these forlorn chirping noises and flickered at him when he tried to do anything with it. He had to say, he felt about the same as his phone right now.

 

He was fiddling with the phone again when it started snowing, and that seemed to be the last straw for the director, who finally told them all to go home and sleep. The last time Misha had managed to pull up a time on the dying phone, it had been after eleven- that meant they’d be lucky to get five hours of sleep before they had to be back up here. Business as usual.

 

“You gonna try CPR next?” Jared asked, grabbing his coat from the chair beside Misha’s.

 

“Don’t tempt me,” Misha muttered, shrugging the thick coat off his shoulders. It wasn’t his; he’d just brought a sweater to set, not expecting this scene to take so many takes. A PA had offered him this monster of a coat to borrow after the sun set and things started getting downright icy.

 

“You going to survive not being able to tweet your…what do you call them? Minions?” Jensen asked, and Misha hopped down from the chair with a sigh.

 

“Yes, minions. And I’m sure I can last a day or two without a phone,” he said, and then after a pause, he added, “At least, I think so.”

 

Jensen smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and Misha couldn’t help but smile back. Jensen’s happiness was infectious, and okay, so maybe Misha was a little smitten, but that was beside the point. As much teasing and flirting as they did, he had no illusions that Jensen actually wanted something more from it, and Misha wasn’t about to be the one to make a good thing very awkward very fast.

 

“See you tomorrow?” Jensen said, and Misha nodded, about to ask Jensen if he might want to come over tomorrow after shooting and catch the game- not that Misha even liked football that much, but Jensen did, and it was always a fun time watching with him.

 

He didn’t get to ask, because the director was calling him over, gesturing to the camera like it was of the utmost importance. Misha rolled his eyes and gave Jensen a small wave. “Yeah, see you tomorrow, Jen,” he said, already shivering a little in the thin fabric of the trench coat as he went to see what the director was gesticulating about now.

 

The director wanted to show him two shots that he wanted to re-do tomorrow- no, not just show him the shots, but explain exactly how they were going to reposition the camera, and how he wanted Misha standing slightly to the left of that rock instead of in front of it, and Misha was seriously going to freeze out here if this guy didn’t shut up.

 

Honestly, he’d had some anal-retentive directors, but this one took the cake.

 

By the time he finally got to go back to his trailer for his things, the set was pretty much deserted and the snow was coming down even harder than before. Misha grabbed his sweater and pulled it on, shoving his broken phone in the pocket and then getting his car keys- he needed to get out of here pretty quick. This was a mountain road, so it wasn’t like the plows would be coming through to keep the snow from piling up.

 

Maybe shooting would get cancelled tomorrow if the snow fell fast enough.

 

He didn’t see anyone else as he made his way to his car, and he shut the door and cranked the heat up to full blast with a sigh of relief. He held his hands up to the vents for a few long moments, heating up the thin fabric of his gloves, his fingers aching as feeling slowly ebbed back into them.

 

He wanted nothing more right now than to curl up in a pile of blankets with a giant mug of hot cocoa. He’d probably be too tired to bother once he got back to his apartment, but it was a nice thought, anyway.

 

As he pulled away from set, the only light on the road came from his headlights, and the moonlight off the snow. They’d been shooting up here three days now, and every single time he drove down this road, it surprised him how quiet and still everything was. With the snow piling up, it added even more to the stillness of the scenery, the bare trees thick on one side of the road, the other side gently sloping down and away. It was like one of those cheesy Christmas cards by those guys who made a living painting trees and snow and the occasional cottage.

 

So needless to say, the last thing Misha expected was to turn a blind corner only to see a giant black mass standing in the road. His mind barely had time to take in the long legs and the massive antlers- a fucking _moose_ , what the hell- before he yanked his wheel sharply to the left to try and avoid the impact, because cars weren’t built to play chicken with a full grown moose and drive away from it.

 

The front right bumper of the car clipped the animal’s front leg, and Misha heard it bellow, but the moose was his last problem now. Absolute last. Because he was jamming his foot all the way down on the brake, trying to halt the car’s inevitable slide down the slope toward a stand of trees, and the car wasn’t stopping. Wasn’t even slowing. In fact, all his braking seemed to be doing was putting the car into a spin, the back end swinging around toward the slope. Fuck, he wasn’t going to stop in time-

 

Everything went black.

 

***~~~~~~***

When he woke, the first thing he noticed was the pain, and the second was the _cold_.

 

He opened his eyes slowly, his head feeling as if someone had stuffed it full of slow-burning coal. He heard the telltale sound of broken glass shifting as he lifted his head from where it was leaning against the driver’s side window, and it took him a few moments to piece together what had happened.

 

A moose. Canada was out to kill him, that was confirmed now, because nobody else on the crew had hit a moose with their car yet. Lucky him. His head was throbbing, and he reached up to feel the left side of his head, his fingers coming away stained with warm blood.

 

That wasn’t the worst pain, though; his left leg was worse by far, the pain bringing every breath he took up short, and he almost didn’t want to know. Breathing hard, he slid his hand down his leg, and just past the knee he felt something sharp. A piece of the car, maybe-

 

No. Not a piece of the car.

 

That was something sticking out of his leg from the inside. He shifted a little to try and reach farther, but the pain from just that small movement was blinding, leaving him shaking and biting down on the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out.

 

It was his bone. It was his fucking bone, shattered entirely, a jagged piece of it piercing through his skin and the rough denim of his jeans. He swallowed hard to fight down the sudden nausea, because bones didn’t work like that, they weren’t supposed to end up on the outside of you. Ever.

 

Shit. He needed help.

 

He fumbled for his phone, his fingers stiff with the cold as he got it out and pressed the home button- but the phone just chirped pitifully, the screen flickering and dying again. No, this was not happening to him- he did not just get in a wreck the night he happened to break his phone. That didn’t happen to real people. That happened in movies. It was the kind of ridiculous coincidence that the critics would cry foul at, shouting ‘Really, what are the chances?’

 

Evidently, pretty fucking good.

 

He desperately tried to coax his phone back to life, but it was no more capable of making a call than it had been on set when he’d pulled it out of that snow bank. It was no good. He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and grabbed for the keys in the ignition, try to get the car started. The impact had been mostly on the driver’s side, maybe the engine could get the car down the mountain, at least.

 

The engine clicked a few times, then nothing. The car was absolutely dead, the heat not running, and the cold rapidly seeping in to take its place.

 

He was absolutely fucked.

 

He couldn’t go for help; crawling through the snow would be a quicker way to turn into a human popsicle than staying put. The car was totaled, and his phone sounded like a bird being strangled.

 

He made an aborted attempt to get to the blanket he knew he had in the backseat, but beyond getting his seatbelt off, it wasn’t happening. The second he tried to twist or reach, the pain turned so vicious that he nearly threw up. All he had was his sweater and a pair of thin driving gloves, and they were fairly useless against the chill that was settling in.

 

He would have to wait for help. Wait for someone to drive by.

 

…Which likely wouldn’t happen until their call time at 6am. Six hours away. He didn’t even know how long a person could last with the temperature hovering around zero, how long before hypothermia took hold; he’d seen the warning signs around, because this was Canada and they took that shit seriously.

 

Misha hadn’t though he’d need any of those special precautions, because he didn’t go hiking, didn’t go camping. He went straight from set to the city, and he mostly stayed in the city. Being stuck in the wilderness wasn’t even a flicker of worry in the back of his mind.

 

At least his leg was kind of warm. No, wait, that wasn’t good. That was blood soaking his leg, and once the blood hit the air, it wouldn’t stay warm for long. Not to mention his blood shouldn’t be outside of him, either.

 

There were a lot of things tonight that were outside his skin that decidedly should not have been. At least his organs had stayed put. He appreciated that, really.

 

He tilted his head to look in the rearview mirror, but there was no sign of the moose that he’d clipped. The thing was so big it probably just had a bruise, and had wondered off to eat more bark, or whatever the fuck moose ate when there wasn’t any plant life around.

 

He was shivering now, his heart racing as he tried to keep himself calm. Maybe he hadn’t been the last one to leave set. Maybe the crazy director was still up there, screaming at no one about camera angles. Someone would drive by. They had to.

 

Because he couldn’t feel his toes inside his shoes, and he was beginning to panic a little.

 

He tried to think logically. What do you do when injured? Stop the bleeding. He should try and stop the bleeding from his leg, at least. He reached down again and his fingers found the jagged edge of bone, and he suppressed the urge to gag as he paused there. How do you put pressure on a bone sticking out of your body? Just touching it was enough to make his head spin from both pain and just plain grossness. He had no idea what he was doing with this.

 

He pulled his hand back and went back to trying to think logically. It had never been his strong suit, sitting down and putting some common fucking sense to work. He rebelled against common sense.

 

He couldn’t just sit here and think about the pain, about the cold. He had to distract himself. It was half about the power of the mind anyway, right? There were monks who could spend hours in these temperatures and not lose an ounce of body heat. And while Misha had no intentions of trying to meditate right now (because it was a struggle for him to focus that much in the best of times), he could at least keep his mind working.

 

Lines. He’d been meaning to work on his lines for the scene coming up Friday. He was pretty sure he remembered them, but he hadn’t really worked them out yet, deciding how he would be voicing each one.

 

He was surprised how rough his voice was when he first started speaking in the silence of the car; he was shivering enough that it was coming through in his words, which didn’t make it easy to make decisions about the lines, because Castiel didn’t shiver. He didn’t hit a moose and then get stuck in the cold. That was all Misha’s brand of oddity.

 

He gave up on the lines when his teeth started chattering. It was only highlighting the fact that he was getting colder with every passing second, his body aching and his movements sluggish at best. It was probably one in the morning by now, and if anyone had stayed late at the set, they would have left by now. He was stuck here till sunrise.

 

He wouldn’t last till sunrise.

 

He was shivering violently, and he couldn’t really focus well anymore. He knew one thing, though; if he got out of this, he was going to ask Jensen out on a date. He could blame it on the near death experience if Jensen seemed horrified by the idea. But geez, when he told himself he would die before he got the nerve to ask his costar out, he hadn’t meant it literally.

 

The next thing he would do was tell Jared to keep his fucking family off the roads at night. Fucking moose. Maybe he would get a hunting license, go looking for the moose with the silver paint on its front leg. Have his own Moby Dick revenge quest. Without the whole, you know, dying at the end. That would kind of defeat the purpose of a revenge quest.

 

What was he going on about again?

 

Oh yeah, asking Jensen out on a date. Not Moby Dick. The logistics of dating a whale would get really messy really fast.

 

And now he was trying to remember why he was considering dating a whale. That was his first clue that his brain might be getting as cold as the rest of him.

 

It must have been a while, because his leg didn’t really hurt anymore. There was this distant, dull ache, but it felt far away. Like it was happening to someone else, not him; the kind of phantom pain you got when watching a rather brutal injury in a movie. Like sympathy pains. But he knew if he reached down, he would still feel the sharp edges of bone sticking through the denim. And while he was appreciative of the lack of pain, he knew that wasn’t a good thing.

 

It didn’t really hit him that he was going to die until he realized he wasn’t shivering anymore.

 

He wondered if he shouldn’t try to leave some kind of messages, for his family, for…for Jensen. He remembered a news story, where was it…Utah, maybe? A man had been trapped in his car, and when he was found dead weeks later, he’d written letters to his kids and wife. Misha didn’t have kids or a wife, but he had a brother, he had friends, parents…

 

It didn’t really matter, because his phone wasn’t working enough to even leave typed messages on it, and he didn’t have anything to write on or with. Aside from his own blood, but he wasn’t sure his family or Jensen would see a message written in blood as a touching, heartfelt message.

 

He felt hot. He felt hot, and that was stupid, because he was in the cold, in a car. In the snow. How did he end up here again?

 

It was a whale. In the road. A fucking whale in the road, and fuck, he just wanted Jensen to be here, right now, with him. His blood felt like tar in his veins, and his heart was thudding against his ribs slower than it had been. He was hot, and he was so freaking cold, and he just wanted Jensen here.

 

It was like falling asleep when he finally gave in.

 

*~~~~~~*

 

Jensen woke up before the sun rose that morning, before his alarm clock even went off. It wasn’t like him, to wake up before the alarm, but he shrugged it off as being a product of the late night they’d had before.

 

He decided he might as well head to set and start getting ready. If today was anything like yesterday, it was going to be a long day; he could get there and start chugging coffee before their guest director got started on his endless, pointless critiques.

 

Jensen appreciated constructive criticism. He didn’t so much appreciate ‘your hand was wrong, move it an inch to the right and shoot again’.

 

He got dressed and grabbed his coat and gloves, not bothering to call Cliff- the set was only 20 minutes outside the city, and there was no sense in dragging someone else out there to suffer in this ridiculous weather. He preferred to just drive himself in cases like this. Walking outside was like walking into a solid wall of cold, the wind stinging at his face as he made his way to the car, boots sinking in the wet snow with every step. At least it had finally stopped snowing; they wouldn’t get stuck on the mountain.

 

The drive was quiet and peaceful; few other cars were on the road before sunrise, and the snow might be enough for schools to be delayed. Not enough to close them- after all, this was Canada. It took a full on blizzard to close down schools here.

 

He glanced at his phone to find a text from Jared from late the night before, and he read it at the last stoplight at the edge of town. ‘ _Did you ask him, or did you chicken out again?_ ’ it read, and Jensen sighed and shoved his phone back in his jacket pocket. He’d almost did; almost asked Misha if hey, maybe he wanted to go out for a drink after shooting, not the normal kind of friendly drink, but a _drink_ drink? And yeah, that right there was part of the reason he hadn’t asked yet, because that sounded really fucking stupid. He wasn’t good at this; maybe Dean was an expert at sweet-talking someone into a date, but Jensen was the opposite. That, and he didn’t know what he’d do if the answer was no. Could he keep coming to set every day and face Misha after that? It would be beyond awkward.

 

The farther he got from town, the less light was borrowed from the bright city lights, until his headlights and the snow were the only source of light left. The mountain road hadn’t been plowed, but a lot of the snow had drifted off the road by now anyway, so it was at least passable. It would be cleared off by the end of shooting for the day, for sure.

 

He was just coming up to a curve when he saw a flash of silver and black off to his left. He slowed down to take a better look, and that was when he realized what it was- a silver car, coated in a few inches of snow, sitting against the trees off the side of the road. Someone had slid off the road during the night, evidently.

 

He pulled to a stop and got out, though he left his car running; whoever it was, they had probably gone for help already, either up to the set or down the road to one of the homes lower on the mountain. Still, he needed to check- they may have been hurt in the crash.

 

Only when he’d trudged a little closer did he realize that the half hidden car looked a hell of a lot like Misha’s- and there weren’t many cars that drove this road that weren’t cast and crew right now. His chest tightened and he moved faster, telling himself all the while that it wasn’t Misha’s car, plenty of people had silver cars, and Misha would have walked back to set by now. He wouldn’t still be here.

 

Every rational thought left his mind when he saw the silhouette through the window of someone slumped in the driver’s seat.

 

“Misha,” he choked out, his own voice unrecognizable as he stumbled forward and grabbed at the passenger side door. It took three tries to get it open, it was frozen shut, and _fuck, how long had Misha been out here…?_

He finally wrenched the door open, snow falling from the top of the car like a curtain, but Jensen was already crawling in and pulling one glove off, reaching for his friend. His knee almost landed on Misha’s cell phone in the passenger seat- _his fucking phone was broken, he couldn’t call anyone, fuck-_ He didn’t want to touch him, didn’t want to check and find that he’d been too late, because Misha was as pale as the snow, too pale. He didn’t even look like he was breathing.

 

He nearly jerked his hand back when his fingers touched Misha’s skin, because it was that cold, a shock to his senses when he expected to feel at least some warmth. There was none, absolutely none, and he pressed his fingers to the side of Misha’s neck, holding his breath and waiting. Praying.

 

Nothing.

 

At least, at first. Just as he was starting to pull away, he felt it- weak, thready, but definitely there. Misha’s heart rate was so slow Jensen had nearly missed it. But he was alive, barely, and fuck, Jensen needed to start getting him warm, _now_.

 

Misha’s car obviously wasn’t able to run; the closest thing Jensen had with any heat was his own car. He would have to get Misha there. He checked to make sure Misha wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, and then he grabbed the man by the shoulders and tugged him over, onto the passenger seat. It was when he was tugging Misha’s legs out of the footwell of the driver’s seat that he found the reason Misha hadn’t gone for help.

 

At first he couldn’t really make sense of what he was seeing, but then he realized that it was bone, Misha’s fucking leg had _snapped_ and that was bone jutting through skin and denim. Jensen pressed his fist to his mouth, fighting down the sudden flood of nausea; Misha’s pant leg was soaked crimson with blood from the knee down, and there was no telling how much blood he’d actually lost.

 

He was so far gone that even moving his leg didn’t stir him when it should have caused excruciating pain.

 

He managed to get Misha out of the car and into his arms, and though it was a bit of a struggle slogging through the snow to his own car, he summoned up the strength to make it. It wasn’t easy getting the back door open, and definitely not easy getting Misha laid down on the backseat, but he managed it somehow, and before he even realized it he was looking for his phone and dialing 911.

 

Thank god for it being the same emergency number as the US, because otherwise he doubt he would’ve remembered it in his panicked state.

 

He sat on the edge of the seat and pulled the door shut behind him, keeping out every bit of the cold that he could. He seemed to remember hearing that it was dangerous to warm someone up too fast- as the 911 operator picked up, he leaned forward and turned the heat down to low, just in case.

 

“I need help,” he blurted, and then he realized just how unhelpful that was. _Get ahold of yourself, Ackles. Don’t lose it now,_ he thought, putting one hand against the side of Misha’s face. His skin was still ice cold.

 

“Sir, where are you located, and what’s the nature of the emergency?”

 

“Up on…fuck, I don’t know the name of it. This road, it’s…it leads up to the Burke Campsite, it goes up the mountain,” he managed.

 

“Okay. We’re sending someone now, okay? Now tell me what’s going on,” the dispatcher said, and Jensen was thankful that she was so damn calm, because he wasn’t. His heart was beating hard enough to feel through his whole body, and he kept wondering what he should be doing. Sharing body heat? Wasn’t that what you were supposed to do?

 

“My friend had a crash. A car crash. I think he’s been out here all night, he’s not…he’s not conscious, and his leg is…it’s just, it’s broken. He’s so cold, I can’t…” he said, fumbling over the words.

 

“Okay. Stay calm for me, alright? Is he breathing? Can you feel a pulse?”

 

“Yeah. Barely. He’s not dead,” he replied, a firm emphasis on the last three words, and he didn’t know who he was trying to convince more- himself, or the dispatcher.

 

The dispatcher’s steady voice came back over the line. “Okay. What have you done so far? Is he still in the vehicle?”

 

Jensen shook his head, and then remembered she couldn’t see him. “No. I carried him to my car. His car wouldn’t run, I’ve…I’ve got the heat on low in here, I didn’t know what else to do,” he explained, defending his actions already.

 

“That’s okay, sir. You’re doing fine. I just need you to not move him at all anymore, okay? Make sure he’s lying down and keep him as still as possible.”

 

Fuck. That didn’t sound good. He leaned over and pressed two fingers to Misha’s neck again, because fuck, what if he’d hurt him when he moved him? What if he ended up killing him accidentally, after all this?

 

“Sir? Are you still there?” the dispatcher asked just as Jensen felt the reassuring, weak thump of a pulse beneath his fingers. If he hadn’t been waiting for it, he may have missed it altogether.

 

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m here. What else can I do? I don’t think he’s bleeding anymore, he…he’s just cold, he’s really cold, I don’t…”

 

“Take a deep breath for me, okay?” the dispatcher said, her voice still steady and reassuring in his ear. “The ambulance is on the way. Try to stay calm. You don’t want to try to warm him up right now, but you don’t want him getting any colder than he is, so keep your car heat down as low as possible.”

 

“Right. Yeah, I knew that. It’s low,” he said, nodding and checking the heat again, as if it could have gone up by itself since he last checked it.

 

“Good. The best thing you can do until the ambulance gets there is to share core heat. Lay as close to him as you can get without moving him, and put a coat over him, okay? If he starts to shiver, that’s okay. If he happens to wake up, try to keep him awake,” she continued, and he was already moving as she continued the instructions, pulling his coat off and laying down on the edge of the seat. He carefully pressed himself in close to Misha and actually recoiled at the cold, taking a deep breath before pulling the coat over them both and laying his arm carefully over Misha’s chest. He pressed his palm right to the center of Misha’s chest, the cold seeming to suck away any heat that it touched.

 

“Okay. I’m doing that. Is there anything else?” he asked, almost desperate to have something else to do, to feel like he was doing everything possible until the paramedics came.

 

“Just stay on the line with me until they get there. You’re doing good,” the dispatcher said, and Jensen didn’t feel like he was doing much good, considering he’d evidently started out this ‘rescue’ by doing something very wrong. But he couldn’t leave Misha in the car, could he? Which was more important, keeping him from getting colder or not moving him? His mind was a jumbled mess, playing over every single second of the last ten minutes, wondering if he was doing anything wrong now, even though he was doing exactly what the dispatcher said to do.

 

They dealt with this a lot, he knew- people getting stuck out in the cold, hypothermic. They knew what they were doing, they had to.

 

He was starting to shiver himself, because Misha was so cold and they were so close, and he was beginning to wonder if Misha had been knocked out by the crash or if he was awake all those hours after. Then he remembered the seatbelt, his seatbelt had been unbuckled, but he always wore it- which meant after the crash he was conscious enough to take it off. God, he was probably awake all night, knowing that he was trapped, and Jensen choked back a sob and tightened his grip a little on his friend.

 

The dispatcher kept talking to him, asking him questions to keep him busy; she probably knew he was going crazy that there wasn’t anything else he could do. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he realized that Misha was shivering- well, not really shivering, more like a fine tremor through his whole body, and that was about the same time he heard the sirens.

 

“The ambulance is here,” he said, his voice trembling slightly as he struggled to sit up. He wished he could feel relieved, but the fear still clawed at him, fear that Misha was just too cold and had lost too much blood to bounce back from this. He hung up with the dispatcher and opened the door nearest the road, stepping out onto the snow-covered pavement just as the ambulance pulled to a stop near the car.

 

“He’s in the back seat,” he said to the first paramedic that got out of the ambulance, a brunette woman decked out in full winter gear. She moved immediately to the open door of Jensen’s car.

 

“Do you know how long he’s been out here?”

 

“I…at least five hours, I left the set around eleven,” Jensen replied, keeping watch as she moved to help her partner, a young man with muscles to rival Jared’s, get the gurney out of the back.

 

“What’s his name? Has he been conscious at all since you got here?”

 

“Misha. His name’s Misha Collins. He’s…no, he’s been out the whole time.”

 

The questions stopped for a moment as the paramedic reached in the car and fastened some sort of brace around Misha’s neck to keep his head and neck steady, and Jensen wanted to help, wanted to help them get Misha from the car onto the gurney, but he knew they wouldn’t have let him. He stood helplessly in the cold, shivering, his frantic breaths clouding in the air as he watched.

 

“Any injuries that you know of other than his leg and his head?” she asked him, and Jensen shook his head.

 

“No, nothing that I saw…can I ride with you? Please? He’s my friend,” he pleaded, because he didn’t want Misha to wake up and only see strangers, because he _was_ going to wake up. He had to.

 

The woman hesitated and glanced at her partner, and Jensen could just tell a ‘no’ was coming. “Please. I just want to stay with him, I won’t freak out on you, I swear,” he added, and she finally sighed and gave him a nod.

 

“Fine, but you have to ride up front. Grab your keys and lock the car,” she reminded him as they wheeled the gurney through the snow to the back of the ambulance. Jensen opened the door and pulled his keys from the ignition, shutting both doors and hitting the lock button even as he followed them to the ambulance, hesitating before opening the passenger side door and getting in. He could have someone come pick up the car later. Hell, tow it away, he didn’t care.

 

It was a minute before the paramedic got into the driver’s seat, and Jensen prayed that the one in the back knew what she was doing. The walls and windows of the truck did little to muffle the sound of the sirens as the paramedic flipped them on and turned the truck around, going as fast as he could safely down the curvy road.

 

The driver was already picking up his radio and holding down the button. “Control, this is 62587, I need you to pass an ASHICE over to Vancouver General for me.”

 

“Go ahead,” the voice on the radio immediately replied back.

 

“Male, mid-30’s, suffering severe hypothermia and a leg fracture. Possible head trauma. We’ve got him set up on the heated oxygen unit and warm IV fluids. Core body temperature at 29 degrees Celsius, pulse at 44. Looking at an ETA of about…5:20, with a ride-along,” the driver rattled off, and Jensen did the quick math in his head- 29 degrees Celsius, that was around 84 degrees Fahrenheit. Normal was around 98, he knew that much, and hell, 14 degrees too cold could not be good.

 

The person on the radio was repeating it all back for confirmation, and Jensen wanted to correct them, wanted to tell them that his name was _Misha_ , that he wasn’t just ‘male, mid-30’s’, but he bit his tongue. He’d promised he wouldn’t freak out on them, and he was trying to stick to that, however difficult it may be.

 

“You’re that guy from the TV show, right?” the driver asked, not in that ‘I’m about to bug you for an autograph way’- yes, he could tell the difference by now. He nodded, and the driver snorted and shook his head as if in disbelief.

 

“My daughter watches that show. Figures,” he muttered, obviously thinking ahead to how he would explain this. Somehow Jensen thought ‘hey, met some actors you like today, one was half dead and the other was an emotional wreck’ wasn’t going to go over well with a fan.

 

“How often do people bounce back from this? Really?” he asked, his voice coming out rough and unsteady. But he wanted to know; he didn’t want to go into this without preparing himself for the odds. Misha did have a way of beating the odds, though.

 

The driver seemed to mull it over for a few moments, but luckily, the man wasn’t one to sugar coat things. “About 50/50, gettin’ that low. Usually don’t have other injuries, though,” he pointed out, and then he shrugged, weaving around a car that hadn’t bothered to pull to the side. “He’s young and healthy, he’s got a better chance than most.”

 

Well, 50/50 wasn’t great, but Jensen had been bracing himself for worse.

 

Better chances or not, it was nearly maddening to sit up here in the front, not knowing what was going on just behind him. But she would call up here if something happened, right? He tried to remind himself that no news is good news, but it didn’t help much. By the time they were pulling up to the hospital, Jensen was shaking with nervous energy, and he was out of the ambulance before the paramedics even got out.

 

The call-ahead had obviously been worth it, because there were already two nurses and a doctor waiting at the ambulance bay, the doors to the emergency ward propped open. Jensen couldn’t help but feel a little relieved when they unloaded the gurney and snapped the wheels down, and the paramedic was filling in the nurses, telling them she’d stabilized his temperature through the transport.

 

But at the same time, Jensen didn’t want to hear stabilized. He wanted to hear that Misha was warmer, because the longer he was this cold, the worse things would get.

 

He followed as far as they would let him, pleading with the nurse to let him know the moment she knew anything; she at least seemed to really listen to him, giving him a sympathetic smile before following the gurney through the swinging doors, which promptly locked shut behind them.

 

And Jensen’s knees suddenly went weak.

 

It was as if all the stress and fear of the last hour had been held at bay only by the need to stay by Misha’s side, and now he couldn’t do anything else, and it was all hitting him at once. He stumbled and braced himself against the wall, closing his eyes and just focusing on breathing. He counted his breaths until he felt steadier on his feet, and then he managed to get back to the waiting room, collapsing into a chair there and pulling out his phone.

 

He was glad he had Jared on speed dial, because it was hard enough trying to hit one number when his hands were shaking so bad, let alone seven. The phone rang four times before Jared finally answered, his voice still in that ‘I haven’t had my coffee yet’ tone.

 

“Jensen, if you need a ride, Cliff is kinda paid for that,” he joked sleepily.

 

“Jared, it’s Misha,” Jensen managed, but his throat closed up and he couldn’t manage anything else, his eyes stinging as he fought back tears. He heard shuffling on the other end of the line, like Jared was already grabbing for his clothes.

 

“What’s wrong? What happened with Misha?” he asked, his voice now more serious than Jensen had heard it be in a long time. He swallowed hard, clenching his fist hard enough that his nails dug painfully into his palm, trying to distract himself from the urge to break down.

 

“”C-Car accident, Jare, he was…he was up there all night, he…they’re trying to warm him up…”

 

He had to stop. He couldn’t seem to even breathe well anymore, and he squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his free hand to his face.

 

“Jensen. Hey, Jen,” Jared was saying, and Jensen could hear a lot of movement now, and the sound of car keys. “Where are you, man? Just breathe.”

 

Jensen tried. He forced himself to take a few deep breaths before lifting his head again. “Vancouver General,” he choked out.

 

“Okay. Hold it together for a few minutes, Jen. I’m coming, okay?”

 

Jensen nodded, remembered he was on the phone, and managed a weak ‘yeah’ before he hung up. He dropped the phone into his lap and buried his face in his hands. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t sit here and wait and have no idea what was going on with Misha behind those doors.

 

What if he hadn’t gone in early today? What if he’d found Misha later, too much later? Why the fuck hadn’t anyone been worried about him not having a working phone? It had been a joke last night, something to tease him about with that Tweeter crap. Now he was wondering how he could have laughed along, how he didn’t see that Misha would be driving down a mountain without a way to call for help. And none of them even had that thought. Because this couldn’t happen, not to Misha.

 

He was usually so vibrant and so fucking _alive_ that the person on that gurney seemed like a different person entirely.

 

It felt like forever before he felt a warm hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to find Jared holding out a cup of coffee to him. He took it silently, not even needing to add a ‘thank you’, because Jared knew. His friend dropped down into the seat next to him, his tall frame dwarfing the uncomfortable waiting room chairs, and his hand wrapped around his own cup of coffee.

 

“You okay?” he asked, and Jensen hesitated before nodding. Yeah, he was okay. He’d been on the verge of a breakdown there for a bit, and still kind of was, but he was in control. Not really okay, but in control.

 

“Can you tell me what happened?” Jared asked, and Jensen realized that he hadn’t really told Jared anything that made sense yet, and Jared was probably worried sick about Misha too.

 

He recounted everything as best he could, trying not to summon up the mental pictures along with it, because he just couldn’t handle it right now. Jared’s frown deepened as he explained, and for the first time that day, Jensen didn’t feel so fucking alone. Jared knew, he understood.

 

“You found him, though. He’s gonna be okay, Jensen,” he said once Jensen was done recounting the events, but Jensen could see the unspoken worry and doubt there. He just nodded, and Jared squeezed his shoulder, taking in a deep breath.

 

“Drink some of that. I brought you a bagel, too. You need to eat,” Jared said, setting a paper bag down on Jensen’s lap. “I’m going to call Kripke and get Misha’s brother’s number.”

 

Jensen couldn’t have been more thankful for his friend than he was at that moment. Making one phone call was bad enough; he couldn’t imagine trying to break this to Misha’s brother or parents. Jared paced a good distance away, talking intently on his phone between sips of coffee, and Jensen forced himself to drink some of his coffee too. The mere thought of eating made him feel a little ill right now; he set the bagel aside for later. Maybe once they heard back about Misha, he would find his appetite again.

 

It ended up being a long wait.

 

Every time Jensen looked at the clock, it seemed like only a few minutes had passed when it felt like an hour. Jared stayed with him after making the phone calls, and eventually coaxed him into eating some of the bagel. When Osric showed up in a panic, Jared was the one to explain what was going on. Jensen had gone from feeling on the verge of falling apart to just feeling numb; everything felt far away, and he kept going over every single thing that had led up to this, imagining what he could have done differently.

 

It was after lunchtime before the doctor finally emerged. Other families had come and gone from the waiting room, but Jensen, Jared, and Osric had remained, Jared and Osric taking turns making trips to get more coffee.

 

When Jensen realized the doctor was headed for them, he stood up so fast that he got a head rush from it. He met the doctor halfway, suddenly finding it difficult to try and breathe deep, even when he felt Jared lay a steadying hand on his back.

 

“You brought in Mr. Collins?” the doctor asked, the slightest hint of a French accent on his words. Jensen nodded.

 

“Yeah. How is he? Is he okay?” he asked, and he immediately wanted to kick himself, because that was a dumb question. Misha wasn’t okay.

 

“We did a cardiopulmonary bypass to warm him internally- basically, we cycled his blood through a machine that slowly heated it to an acceptable temperature before cycling it back into his body,” the doctor explained. “As far as his body temperature, he is now back at a stable condition, and he avoided any serious frostbite to his limbs.”

 

Jensen sagged with relief. Misha was stable. He was _okay_. The doctor was continuing though, his expression still serious.

 

“We could not perform corrective surgery on his leg fracture until we raised his body temperature, but if we put it off any longer, the risk of infection will be unacceptably high,” he said. “We’re going to take him into surgery now to repair his leg. It may be a few more hours before we have another update. How he handles this surgery will be a big factor in his recovery, but we have no way of judging any permanent damage from the hypothermia until he wakes up.”

 

Well, there went that relief. He wasn’t sure he could take hours more of waiting for news, and now he had a whole new set of worries; he had been so worried about Misha just living through this that he hadn’t considered the lasting effects he might have from this. Did hypothermia cause brain damage? Would he even make it through a major surgery after everything he’d already been through?

 

He didn’t even realize that his legs were giving out until he felt Jared grab one arm and Osric grab the other. He fought off the dizziness and tried to get his feet back under him, vaguely hearing the doctor ask them if he needed to call a nurse, and Jared telling him that Jensen just needed to sit down for a minute. He let himself be led back to a seat and crumpled down into it, and then Osric was holding a bottle of water to his lips, making him take a long drink.

 

His mind started coming back to the present. He shook his head as if trying to clear it, his whole body trembling as he blinked and focused on Osric, who was looking rather concerned.

 

“Jensen, are you okay? Should we get a nurse?” he asked, and Jensen shook his head.

 

“No, no, I’m…I’m fine,” he insisted, though he didn’t feel fine at all; he felt utterly out of control. Completely wrecked. But he had to stay, he had to be here if Misha needed him.

 

“Here, push these together,” Jared said, dragging a few more chairs over that didn’t have arms attached, and despite Jensen’s protests, Jared guided him back until he was laying down on the row of chairs.

 

“He’ll be okay, Jensen,” Osric insisted, sitting down in the chair by Jensen’s feet. “Try to rest. If anything changes, we’ll let you know first, okay?”

 

Jensen didn’t want to rest. He didn’t want to lay here feeling helpless, didn’t want to watch the other people coming and going when he was waiting for hours for every bit of news; but at the same time, laying down seemed to let all the exhaustion and stress of the day take over.

 

Before he could even put up an argument over it, he’d passed out entirely.

 

He vaguely remembered waking up upon hearing familiar voices come and go- Kripke, and Cliff, at least- but it was all a bit of a blur. He only came to completely when someone shook his shoulder and said the doctor was back, and he tried to sit right up, only to find that Jared had cut him off at the pass; his friend was gripping his shoulder, making sure he took his time sitting up, and this time the doctor made it to where they were sitting without a panicked Jensen cutting him off.

 

“It went well,” the doctor said, and those three words were enough to have Jensen sighing heavily with relief even before the doctor continued talking. “We set the bones back properly, and installed two pins to keep them in place. It will be a long recovery process, but if all goes well, he should eventually regain full mobility in the limb.”

 

It was like a world of weight off his shoulders. Misha was alive, his leg would be okay- now all he had to do was wake up. “Can I see him yet?” Jensen asked, and the doctor smiled just a little, as if he knew that question was coming next.

 

“He is in the ICU. He may not wake up for a while yet, but one person at a time can visit,” he said, aiming the answer at Jensen. It seemed Osric and Jared had the same thought, because Jared gave him a relieved smile.

 

“Go ahead, Jensen. I’ll stay out here and make sure everyone knows he’s gonna be okay,” he said, and Osric nodded in agreement.

 

Jensen had the best fucking friends in the world.

 

He followed the doctor through the swinging doors, the full chemical smell of the hospital hitting him full force. They passed room after room and went past a nurses’ station to yet another set of locked doors, which the doctor used his ID card to open.

 

This was the ICU; Jensen could tell by the distinctive circular setup, designed so the nurses could see into all the rooms at all times. The doctor motioned toward one of the doorways and Jensen slowed, relief quickly being replaced by fear, and by nervousness.

 

The last time he’d seen Misha, he’d been so pale that he looked already dead.

 

Jensen took a deep breath before stepping inside, though one look at the figure on the bed was enough to have his throat closing up and his chest tightening as he fought back yet more tears. Misha had more color to him now, no longer white as the snow that had covered his car; but that didn’t prepare him for all the IVs, all the cords, and the plastic that was holding the tube in place down his throat. It was one thing to know that he was okay, that the doctor said he was going to pull through- it was another to equate that with the picture before him.

 

“God, Misha,” he said weakly, stepping over to the side of the bed and reaching out. He only hesitated a moment before lightly touching the side of Misha’s face, and his breath left him in a rush when it wasn’t freezing cold under his fingertips, but instead warm, soft skin. He glanced down to Misha’s left leg, which was propped up on a thick cushion; the cast around his leg was bulky and thick, coming over the knee and all the way down his foot, only his toes exposed.

 

It was nothing like the sets that they threw together to make a fake hospital room for the show. There was constant noise, the beep of the heart monitor and the hiss and click of the ventilator, and so many sensors and tubes, most of which Dean had no idea what they were responsible for.

 

It was shocking to see such a strong person looking so…frail.

 

He sank down into the chair beside the bed, grabbing onto Misha’s hand and squeezing lightly, as if simply trying to wake him from a nap on set. Of course there was no response, no change, but he didn’t let go. The warmth of his skin was a reminder that he was going to be okay.

 

He didn’t even remember falling asleep, after sitting at the bedside for so long. He woke up to find that Jared was in the room with them, standing on the other side of the bed, and he lifted his head with a wince.

 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you,” Jared said, almost whispering, as if he might wake up Misha by accident, too. Jensen realized that his hand had fallen asleep, and he pulled it free from Misha’s, flexing his fingers to try and urge feeling back into them.

 

“S’okay,” he said, still half asleep. “Nurse let you in?”

 

Jared smiled. “She’s a fan.”

 

Well. There were some useful perks to celebrity.

 

“You know, she said that if you’d found him any later than you did, he wouldn’t have made it,” Jared said after a few long moments of silence, and Jensen winced at the thought. “You saved his life.”

 

Jensen certainly didn’t feel heroic or anything. He was more confused than anything else; why _had_ he woken up that early? He never woke up before his alarm went off, not until today, of all days.

 

Any other day, he would have still been asleep while Misha was trapped and dying.

 

“They’ve cancelled filming for the rest of this week. They’ll have a meeting with the writers and Misha’s manager after that to decide what to do next,” Jared said, and Jensen nodded. He was glad they’d decided to do that, because whether they cancelled or not, he was staying here. And once Misha woke up, Jensen was going to make sure he took his time recovering.

 

“Thanks, Jared,” he said, managing a weak smile. Jared ruffled Jensen’s hair with a grin.

 

“Just lookin’ out for you two, like always,” he said. “I’ll be back in a while with some food, and you’re going to eat it. Got it?”

 

Jensen chuckled. “Yeah, got it,” he said reluctantly, saying goodbye to Jared before turning back to Misha. He laced his fingers through Misha’s again, holding gently as he laid his head on the edge of the bed.

 

“Hang in there, Mish,” he whispered, letting his eyes fall closed and slipping into sleep once again.

 

And when he woke again, it was to the feeling of something gently touching his hair.

 

He shifted and moaned softly at the pain in his neck from sleeping bent over like that. He tried to squeeze Misha’s hand, too- but it wasn’t there. He opened his eyes and blinked in confusion, only to find that it was Misha’s hand touching his hair, just barely. He looked up and met pained, tired blue eyes with his own, and he was standing up before he even felt fully awake.

 

“Misha, fucking hell,” he said with a laugh that broke in the middle, taking Misha’s hand in his own again, using his other hand to brush Misha’s hair back from his forehead. “You scared the fuck out of me, you know that, right?”

 

He didn’t expect an answer, considering the fact that Misha currently had a tube down his throat, and he didn’t really look completely aware of what was going on. He was still heavily drugged, that much was obvious. Jensen leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Misha’s forehead.

 

“Don’t you dare do that again. Ever,” he said, and there was a long pause before Misha finally nodded, just slightly. Jensen stubbornly wiped away tears before sitting back down, holding Misha’s hand in both of his, and it wasn’t a full minute later before Misha was asleep again.

 

*~~~~~~*

 

Everything hurt. He was pretty sure he’d never been in this kind of pain, not even after his biking accident. From his scalp to his toes, everything was aching, and his left leg…that was another story. It hurt like _hell_.

 

But at the same time, the pain almost felt muffled. It took a few moments before Misha realized his mind was similarly fuzzy, and he figured out he was probably drugged up.

 

It all came flooding back, at least, the parts he could remember. That goddamn _moose_ , the car skidding off the road, his frantic attempts to stop, and…waiting. He remembered a little of it, realizing his leg was mangled, his phone not working, but everything else was indistinct.

 

What happened after that? Did someone find him?

 

He fought to open his eyes. There was something on his face, a mask, and when he finally managed to open his eyes, he could see the curve of the clear mask over his nose and mouth.

 

He suddenly realized that something warm was around his left hand, and he blinked a few times to try and focus, and found himself looking at Jensen. He was sitting back in the chair, chin tilted forward on his chest as he slept, and he was holding onto Misha’s hand with one of his own.

 

Well, that was nice to wake up to. He suddenly felt a whole lot better than ten seconds previous.

 

He almost didn’t want to wake Jensen, but that couldn’t have been a comfortable position to sleep in, and he had a shit ton of questions he wanted to ask. Or try to ask, anyway, before the fuzziness in his head pulled him back under. He squeezed Jensen’s hand, though he was surprised by how difficult it was to do even that much.

 

Jensen woke with a start, immediately looking up at Misha and smiling with a relieved sigh. “Hey. Finally decided to wake up again?” he asked, voice gravelly with sleep, and Misha frowned. Again?

 

“You probably don’t remember. You were pretty out of it,” Jensen continued before he could even try to ask. He leaned forward, taking Misha’s hand in both of his, which was really nice. He could get used to this. “How do you feel?”

 

How did he feel? Sore. Confused. A little worried. Kind of happy, because Jensen was sitting here holding his hand. But mostly sore.

 

“T’hurts,” he said, though it took two tries and a light cough to force the words out. He felt like he’d been underwater for days or something, his whole body heavy and stiff. Nothing wanted to work right, from his vocal cords to his fingers.

 

“Yeah. They said it would still hurt. You’re on morphine, though,” Jensen said, and Misha had to wonder how badly he would be hurting without the morphine involved. He started to ask what happened, but Jensen shushed him.

 

“Stop trying to talk. I’ll tell you what happened if you think you’ll remember it,” he offered, and Misha nodded as best he could. He wanted to know, desperately, and he felt lucid enough.

 

“Okay. You’re in the hospital, in the ICU, but you’re going to be fine, okay? So don’t panic. Do you remember the car crash?”

 

Don’t panic. He could do that. ICU was serious, he knew it was, but if Jensen said he was going to be fine, then he would be. He nodded again. “M-Moose.”

 

“What?”

 

“Moose…in t’road,” Misha elaborated, though his words were still coming out slurred. Jensen seemed to understand, though, because he shook his head.

 

“I was wondering how you ended up off the road,” he said, and then he continued. “You were out there all n-night. I…”

 

Jensen paused, and Misha was surprised to see that he was trying not to cry. Jesus, how bad had it been? He squeezed Jensen’s hand again, and Jensen laughed, shaking his head again.

 

“Sorry. I just…I found you, this morning. I headed to set early, and I saw your car, and…”

 

Oh. That explained it. Finding one of your friends doing their best impression of a popsicle could not have been a great way to start the morning. He wished he could do more than squeeze Jensen’s hand, wished he could hug him and thank him until he couldn’t physically speak anymore, because nobody should have to deal with this.

 

“Anyway,” Jensen said, taking a deep breath and seeming to get more control of himself. “I called an ambulance, and when they got you here they, uh…they warmed you up.”

 

Misha arched an eyebrow. What, did they pop him in a human sized microwave? While a great mental picture, he had the feeling that wasn’t exactly how it worked. Jensen saw the gesture and laughed.

 

“Okay, yeah. I can’t explain as well as the doctor did, but basically they used a kind of dialysis machine to cycle out your blood and warm it up before they put it back in.”

 

That was…badass, actually. Not the kind of thing he would have guessed, but hell, that would be a great story to share on Twitter.

 

When he got his phone fixed, anyway.

 

…Maybe he needed a new phone altogether. He didn’t exactly have great memories with this kind of phone.

 

“They had to do surgery to fix your leg. He said they put two pins in it to reinforce the bones,” Jensen was saying, oblivious to Misha’s internal monologue. “You’ve been pretty much out for almost two days. Everyone’s stopped by to see you.”

 

Well, that was touching, but now Misha kind of felt bad he wasn’t awake for their visits. And he also felt bad for worrying them. This was his fault, after all- being stupid enough to drive down a mountain without a working phone. Who did that? Evidently, him. Good going, Misha. Gold star for you.

 

“The s-show?” he asked, deciding that the less words he used, the better. Jensen rolled his eyes.

 

“Don’t you even start worrying about work. Filming is halted, but they haven’t decided whether they’re going to do rewrites or go on a hiatus,” he explained, and Misha frowned- a hiatus? Surely they wouldn’t need a full on hiatus. It was just a broken leg, right?

 

Obviously Jensen saw his confusion, because he sighed. “You don’t just get to grab a pair of crutches and go, Mish. You’re looking at two months of physical therapy. That was a major injury.”

 

Shit. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want that at all. He tried to shake his head, but Jensen gave him a stern look.

 

“No. I can already tell what you’re thinking, and no. You’re going to do the physical therapy, and you’re going to take your time and rest,” he insisted. “And you’re going to need some help, too. Your brother flew in yesterday, and he offered to stay at your place and help you, but…”

 

But? Misha gave Jensen a curious look, urging him to continue.

 

“But your apartment is on the third floor. If the elevator goes out, you’ll be stuck. So I kinda offered to just have you stay at my place for a few weeks. If that’s okay,” Jensen said, the words coming out in a rush as he shifted awkwardly in his chair.

 

Misha knew he wouldn’t let his brother stay here and babysit him. His brother had his own family, his own job, and taking off for a few weeks wouldn’t be easy for him.

 

And while he didn’t want _anyone_ babysitting him at all, he knew they were going to insist, and well…Jensen was basically on the same schedule as him, for the time being. He didn’t want to be a burden, but he didn’t have much of a choice right now- if he turned down Jensen, his brother would stay, for sure.

 

And the idea of spending weeks hanging out with Jensen, in pain or not, was admittedly tempting.

 

Jensen’s shoulders sagged with relief when Misha finally nodded. “Good. Cause I kinda already have your brother and Cliff packing some of your things and taking them over to my place,” he said sheepishly, and Misha managed to roll his eyes. It was getting harder to stay awake, though, his eyes growing heavier by the second.

 

“You need to sleep. I’m sorry, this is a lot to dump on you all at once,” Jensen muttered, but then he looked up again, his expression stern. “You’re never allowed to scare me like this again. You really worried me, Misha, You worried _us_.”

 

Misha knew he couldn’t promise anything, but he nodded anyway and squeezed Jensen’s hand again. This seemed to mollify Jensen, at least for the moment.

 

“Get some sleep, Mish,” he said, and Misha didn’t need any encouragement. He let his eyes fall closed, and just as he was drifting off, he could’ve sworn he felt Jensen kiss his forehead.

 

*~~~~~~*

 

By the time Christmas rolled around three weeks later, Misha was well and truly frustrated.

 

He had to stay in the hospital for nearly two weeks, at first to make sure he recovered fully from all the shit he’d been through and watch for infection, and after that to get started on physical therapy. Even with the constant visits from friends, the pain was a constant irritant that drugs couldn’t entirely get rid of, and he was anxious to get out of a hospital room. It was slow-going, but eventually the hospital agreed to let him leave, as long as he came back every day for his sessions.

 

(Misha was pretty sure that it was also because his minions had overwhelmed the hospital with flowers and balloons and kale bouquets, to the point where Misha had to have Jared post on his Twitter to please make charitable donations in lieu of sending gifts. His nurse admitted that an entire storage room had to be set aside to hold all the gifts sent in.)

 

But Jensen had been there every day. And that wasn’t an exaggeration; Jensen had literally been there every day, sneaking in food from the outside, working with the physical therapist so he knew exactly which exercises to make Misha do at home, and generally hanging out and watching bad daytime TV with him. Misha learned more about behind the scenes shit at soap opera sets than he ever needed to know.

 

Misha had thanked him so many times, but it never felt like enough. Jensen had basically put his life on hold to help Misha- and now, he was skipping the usual flight to Texas to be with his family over Christmas, instead insisting on staying home with Misha.

 

Which, of course, had sent Misha into a tailspin trying to figure out what to get Jensen for Christmas, and how the hell he was going to buy a present for someone who was with him nearly every waking moment.

 

When he finally thought of something, he had to steal Jensen’s phone long enough to make a secret call to Kripke and get his help. And then, he had to make sure to check the mail before Jensen got to it each day, beyond relieved when what he was waiting for finally arrived two days before Christmas and he got it hidden away where Jensen wouldn’t find it.

 

When he woke up on Christmas Eve, it was to the smell of bacon cooking. That was a foolproof way of getting him out of bed fast, getting onto his crutches and leaving the extra bedroom that had temporarily become his room.

 

Jensen was at the stove in pajama pants and a tank top, whistling as he kept the bacon frying in one pan, and pancakes cooking in the other. It gave Misha a few moments to just enjoy the view; the freckles dusted across his shoulders and the bridge of his nose, the way he squinted a little when he was concentrating. He looked up and smiled when he heard the distinctive sound of Misha’s crutches on the hardwood.

 

“Merry Christmas,” he said with a bright smile, gesturing at the table with his spatula. “Have a seat, breakfast is almost ready.”

 

“Merry Christmas,” Misha said sleepily, dropping into a chair with a wince. The cold weather wasn’t exactly lessening the pain of healing. He leaned his crutches against the side of the table as Jensen slid some pancakes and bacon on a plate, and then brought it over to the table, setting it beside the orange juice that was already there.

 

“You sleep okay?” Jensen asked as he plated his own food, and Misha nodded.

 

“Yeah, thanks,” he replied, and then barely managed to catch the pill bottle that Jensen tossed in his direction.

 

“Take your meds,” Jensen said with a smirk, sitting down across from him. Misha wrinkled his nose at the bottle, reluctantly opening it and shaking one pill out. While he appreciated the fact that they lessened the pain, they also made his mind a little fuzzy, which he didn’t like at all.

 

But if there was anyone with a stubborn streak that rivaled his, it was Jensen; he’d already figured out that trying to argue his way out of taking the meds wouldn’t work. He took the pill and started eating, the small kitchen TV providing background noise in the form of the news, which seemed to be all feel-good Christmas stories at the moment.

 

Misha expected to go straight into his usual exercises once they finished eating, but instead Jensen led him to the living room, telling him to sit on the couch and stay put for a second. When he returned from his bedroom he was holding a small wrapped package. He sat down and held it out, and Misha took it, shaking his head.

 

“You didn’t have to get me anything. Hell, you’re letting me live at your place and dealing with my mood swings. You’ve pretty much qualified for sainthood,” he pointed out, and Jensen laughed.

 

“Anyone dealing with a broken leg is gonna have mood swings. And it’s not much. Open it,” he said, and Misha tugged the wrapping paper free to reveal…a phone. No, not just a phone, which would have been nice enough, considering it was definitely an upgrade from his last one- no, the biggest difference was that this one had a clear, waterproof case fitted tightly around it.

 

He couldn’t help but laugh, giving Jensen a look. “Really, Jen?”

 

Jensen shrugged, still smiling. “Thought about getting you a Life Alert, but as far as I know, those don’t hook up to Tweeter.”

 

“Twitter.”

 

“Whatever.”

 

Misha laughed again, then smiled deviously. “I got you a present, too.”

 

Jensen went from amused to confused in half a second. “…How?”

 

“By being awesome,” Misha said, reaching for one of the books on the coffee table, one that his brother had brought over from his house. He opened the cover and tugged out the envelope that was tucked inside it, tossing the book back onto the table and holding the envelope out to Jensen.

 

Jensen took it and read the return address on it, raising an eyebrow. “You got me a letter from Kripke?”

 

“Just open it,” Misha said, leaning forward, nearly vibrating with excitement as he waited for Jensen to read the letter inside. He unfolded it, and as he read, Misha could see his eyes go wide.

 

“No way. No fucking way. Misha, how the hell…?”

 

Misha grinned. He knew he’d done a good job with the present when he got Kripke to agree to this- contained in that letter was a guarantee to Jensen that he would be given his choice of one of the Impalas to keep when filming finally ended for good. “I’m just that awesome. Consider it a thank you for saving my life,” he said. “Sorry you can’t have it for a few years yet, but I figured-“

 

He didn’t finish the sentence, because there were hands on his face and lips against his own, and what the hell- Jensen was _kissing_ him. It only took that split second of realization before he was kissing back, the new phone forgotten in his lap as he leaned into it, and he was pretty sure his heart skipped a few beats there. Like he was back in middle school and getting kissed by his biggest crush.

 

Jensen pulled away when they both needed to breathe, because somehow they’d both ended up forgetting how to breathe and kiss at the same time, and he immediately blushed. “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-“

 

“Oh, stop it. I’m not sorry and you shouldn’t be, either,” Misha pointed out with a grin. “Does this mean I can finally ask you out for a drink?”

 

“You’re not allowed to drink alcohol on those meds.”

 

“Oh my god, miss the point a little more, why don’t you?” Misha said, and Jensen laughed before nodding.

 

“Yeah. I’d like that,” he said, and Misha couldn’t help but lean in for another kiss.

 

So maybe he would have preferred to get to the happy ending without all the pain in the middle- but it _was_ a happy ending, and that was the important part.


End file.
